http://www.upoucommunity.net/articles/56-commentaries/65-music-therapy-for-the-special-child.html
upoucommunity.net
by Maureen Vivienne Angelica S. Magallanes

Music Therapy is probably the oldest form of treatment on earth. The idea of music as a healing influence dates back to pre-historic times. Ancient healers used music to drive away illnesses and restore health.

Everyone has experienced music, and has developed a personal definition of what it is, and have a specific set of music preferences and appreciation. And the love for it is an inborn quality in human beings.

Music Therapy is the dynamic combination of many disciplines around two subject areas: Music and Therapy. Music is the phenomenon people create, sing, perform, listen to, appreciate, enjoy and share with others. Therapy is a means of helping a person with physical, intellectual, emotional, psychological, psychosocial, and spiritual problems; like special people: those who are autistic, visually impaired, hearing impaired, intellectually disabled, mentally retarded, Down’s syndrome, multi-handicapped, Cerebral Palsied, senior citizens, socially and psychologically embattled, even normal people.

The major goal of Music Therapy is to change the person’s behavior, remove unwanted, uncomfortable, and unhealthy conditions and replace them with more adaptive ones. If these are achieved, other needs could be supported and complimented.

Music plays an important role in educating the special person. And the therapy usually should start at an early age. Through music therapy, he can attain educational and therapeutic goals. It opens opportunities for participation at one’s own level of functioning and ability. It should be noted that people with disabilities aren’t necessarily disabled in their musical skills.

Music stimulates all senses and involves the child at many levels. Because the brain can process music in both hemispheres, music can stimulate cognitive functioning and may be used for remediation of some language skills. Quality learning and maximum participation occur when children are permitted to experience the joy of play. The medium of music therapy allows this play to occur naturally and frequently.

Music is highly motivating, yet it can also have a calming and relaxing effect. Enjoyable music activities are designed to be success-oriented and make people feel better about their selves. Music therapy can help a person manage pain and stress. It can also encourage socialization, self-expression, communication and motor development.

There is therapeutic value in music therapy because music helps improve physical problems, helps develop eye contact and increase attention span and helps modify hyperactive behavior and eliminate unwanted behavior. Music also develops speech, helps people memorize better and helps increase vocabulary. It makes people more cooperative and generous, makes it easier for them to relate to one another. It also promotes relaxation, reduces stress and helps ease pain. Music is also proficient in the area of non verbal and symbolic communication and aims to provide and environment in which people can feel free to express their emotions, even their unspoken emotions. It also helps in the continuous flow of oxygen to the heart through breathing and exercises; it helps strengthen the lungs through breathing and vocalization. It also encourages people to be more imaginative, creative and expressive in words and in movement.

Music should not be taught as an end product itself. It is difficult to understand and analyze how and what a handicapped person may gain through musical experience. But whatever it is, the most important purpose we should have is the happiness of each child and their feelings and the spirits gained from the music therapy sessions.

http://www.dailybruin.com/articles/2009/8/3/music-therapy-helps-autistic-children/
dailybruin.com
By Sandy Bui

Miracle Mile resident Rosanne Walden and her family welcomingly embrace the potent power of music.

Walden’s 12-year-old son, Adam, though diagnosed with moderate to severe autism when he was 3 years old, has an affinity for music that has provided positive new approaches for his academic education, Walden said.

At first, the Waldens attempted to maintain Adam’s hyperactivity by encouraging him to play an instrument. Adam soon gravitated toward the cello, leading to his performances around the country, like at the United Nations two months ago, his mother said.

Adam, who will be the first autistic child to attend the Millikan Middle School and Performing Arts Magnet, is currently a prospective study subject for the Music Enhanced Learning Opportunities for Developing Youth research program at UCLA, Walden said. Through the study, researchers will be able to study Adam’s brain functions when he is playing melodies, she added.

In 2006, Istvan Molnar-Szakacs, a research neuroscientist at the UCLA Tennenbaum Center for the Biology of Creativity, developed MELODY to use music as a research and therapeutic tool to study children and individuals with autism, he said. Currently, research for MELODY is conducted under the auspices of The Help Group – UCLA Autism Research Alliance, which is a partnership between the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and The Help Group, said Elizabeth Laugeson, the director of the alliance.

The Help Group, a comprehensive nonprofit, specifically serves children with special needs related to autism spectrum disorders, learning disabilities, abuse and emotional challenges.

MELODY’s first study, funded by the GRAMMY Foundation in 2008, was developed to use functional MRI to identify the main brain regions involved in processing emotion from faces and in processing emotions in music, Molnar-Szakacs said. This specific study also sees how those brain systems differ in typically developing children and children with autism, he added.

“Behaviorally, children with autism have difficulties with social situations, processing emotion and understanding others’ emotion,” Molnar-Szakacs said.

About a month ago, MELODY’s second grant to study the effects of music education on socio-emotional functioning was funded by the NAMM Foundation, the supporting organization of the international music products association, Molnar-Szakacs said.

This recent grant will enable researchers to go directly to The Help Group’s schools for a naturalistic, 12-week period study to access the children’s behavior, musical ability and emotional functioning and collect quantitative and qualitative data, he said. Molnar-Szakacs added that this study will likely begin in the fall or early next year.

“We hope through this study to establish the positive impact of music education on developing and improving these critical social-emotional skills,” Laugeson added.

Since autism was identified in the 1940s, literature suggested that autistic individuals have a special affinity to music, such as enhanced pitch memory and pitch labeling, Molnar-Szakacs said. This literature ultimately suggested that music might be an effective way to communicate with autistic children, he added.

Molnar-Szakacs, whose interest in neural bases of social communication led to his studying autism and socio-emotional communication, said he wanted to develop a higher research program like MELODY rather than have just one project.

MELODY currently comprises three components: research, education and music therapy, Molnar-Szakacs said. The music therapy element of MELODY has not yet been funded, but this music-based therapeutic intervention will be developed based on the results from the two funded studies, Molnar-Szakacs added.

The reasons for music’s powers are debatable, but music’s impacts clearly exist for every individual. Despite his research in music’s undeniable influence, Molnar-Szakacs said he believes it is not up to him to explain why music is so powerful.

“Inherently, you know why music is powerful, you can feel why music is powerful,” he said. “I think that everybody (feels) that very same effect, that music allows them to maybe go back to their childhood and remember certain songs, or … bring back memories of people, places or events.”

For Adam Walden, his musical intuition provides a powerful and effective tool for teachers.

Adam’s talent has allowed teachers to link musical components with his academic education to facilitate learning, Walden said. For example, to teach Adam about the Revolutionary War and the eighteenth century, teachers first encouraged Adam to learn about the music of the era. As a result, Adam gradually became interested in the era, making it possible to teach him the facts of the history, his mother said.

“Adam learns like a Polaroid photograph. You present it all to him, and he gets like the tiniest outline of what it is, but as you continue to present it to him, it comes in clearer and clearer, and he goes from knowing nothing, to when it comes to focus, he knows it all,” she added.

Vanya Green, a board-certified music therapist at Mattel Children’s Hospital Child Life/Child Development Services who specializes in facilitating creative expression and anxiety reduction/increased relaxation through music therapy, explained that music can express both an idea and emotion simultaneously.

“I think whereas words are oftentimes symbols of something that you want to express, especially if you want to express a certain emotion, music is sort of a direct expression of that, and I think people feel that when they hear music,” Green said.

http://www.curiousparents.com/Main/xq/asp/article.music_therapy/qx/article.htm
curiousparents.com
By Jerry O’Leary, MA, MT-BC

Is it the melody or the rhythm? What about dynamics, pitch, timbre? Which one of these musical elements help children find happiness? How can music make someone feel excited one minute and relaxed the next? It really depends on the type of music and how the music is used.

Music has been around for since the beginning of mankind. Over the past 50 years, a group of dedicated professionals have applied music as a therapy to relieve stress, improve health and overcome physical difficulties and mental challenges. They are called music therapists. Educated with a delicate balance of music and psychology, these skilled artists apply and study the powerful effects of music as a therapeutic tool on our daily lives.

Music therapists employ both individual and group therapy sessions to assist people in developing socially, sharpening their focus and attention, managing pain, elevating their cognitive ability, alleviating stress, building self-esteem and essentially enjoying life.

How Do They Do It?

Music therapists create goals and objectives intended to answer the needs of their clients through the use of carefully constructed treatment plans. Music therapists interact with other professionals treating infants, young children, teenagers, young adults, middle-aged adults and seniors. Two particular groups that benefit tremendously from music therapy intervention are young children and seniors. In this brief article we will look at some of the benefits children receive from music therapy.

What Attracts Them?

Children are fascinated by music because they can hear it, they can feel it, they can see it and they can make it. Music attracts their attention and focus. It provides children with a unique opportunity to express their creative spirits. With the professional guidance and oversight of a trained music therapist, children come to appreciate music as an innovative and expressive art. But what about children that face difficult challenges due to developmental or cognitive delays? How does music therapy impact their lives?

Music Therapy and Special Needs

As parents and professionals have become more aware of the various indicators of the presence of Autistic Spectrum Disorders or ASD, an astonishing number of cases have been discovered. According to the U.S. Department of Education, the recognition and diagnosis of autism has increased by 870% over the past decade. Music therapy can provide a safe and effective means for addressing the needs of children affected by ASD. Group music therapy sessions provide the social interaction so desperately needed by children affected by ASD. It incorporates sensory integration techniques into a supportive environment in which the children can flourish. As a practicing music therapist, I constantly hear from parents that their child loves and responds positively to music. Music provides stimulation to the entire brain while fostering growth, social development and learning. Music therapy focuses on their abilities, not their disabilities, to help them and their families overcome their personal isolation

Using sing along songs and rhyming patterns, children can be taught routine tasks and responsibilities. Through the repetitive nature of a music therapy sessions, ASD children find a safe haven where the playing field is more level in light of their specific challenges.

Looking to the Future

Music therapy professionals continue to reach out to special needs groups in the hope of offering solutions to the obstacles these children face. We offer a fulfilling and rewarding experience through the use of music as a therapeutic tool. We search for the little victories that can successfully offer positive alternatives to special needs individuals, in conjunction with other traditional therapies. With perseverance and the power of music, we can strive to seek the answers to many of the unknown questions about ASD and the children it affects.